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Career Change

When a successful corporate career reaches a turning point, the obvious next move isn’t always another job.

For an experienced executive or senior professional in career transition, consulting often seems like the natural next chapter.

And for good reason.

After 20 or 30 years in an industry, you have expertise companies need. You understand problems younger professionals haven’t encountered yet. You know the players. You have relationships. And instead of committing to another corporate position, consulting offers independence and the opportunity to monetize what you know.

But before automatically deciding, “I’ll become a consultant,” it may be worth asking a different question:

Do you want to create a consulting practice – or build a business?

Because there is another way to leverage virtually the same career assets: executive search.

In Many Ways, Executive Search Is Consulting

Think about what a good consultant does.

A company has a problem. The consultant understands the business, diagnoses the issue, brings specialized expertise and helps the client arrive at a solution.

Executive search isn’t terribly different.

A company has a problem – but instead of needing a strategy deck, process redesign or implementation plan, it needs the right person.

Maybe a manufacturer needs a VP of Operations capable of turning around an underperforming division.

A life sciences company needs a Director of Quality who understands a highly specialized regulatory environment.

A growing organization needs a supply chain leader, engineering manager, controller or sales executive who can take the company to the next level.

The executive recruiter must understand the business challenge behind the position, evaluate what success actually requires, identify people capable of solving the problem and persuade the right candidate to consider the opportunity.

The deliverable is people.

That makes executive search a highly consultative business—and one where decades of industry experience can become an enormous advantage.

The Challenge With the Traditional Consulting Path

Many first-time consultants begin in exactly the same place: their network.

A former customer calls. A previous employer needs help. A colleague makes an introduction. A supplier knows someone looking for expertise.

That’s a tremendous advantage.

The problem is that a network and a business-development pipeline are not necessarily the same thing.

Your network can generate your first engagement, second engagement and perhaps several more. But eventually you have to consistently create new opportunities outside the people who already know you.

And consulting presents a particular challenge.

When you aren’t working for a client, you have time to sell – but you need revenue.

When you’re deeply engaged with a client, you have revenue – but less time to sell.

That creates a difficult balancing act: delivering today’s project while simultaneously creating tomorrow’s engagement.

Successful consultants absolutely solve this. They develop referral systems, recurring engagements, thought leadership, prospecting routines and business-development disciplines.

But they have to build those systems – and keep them running while they are also doing the work.

Executive Search Has the Same Requirement – but a Different Structure

Owning an executive search business doesn’t eliminate business development.

An FPC owner still has to build relationships, call companies, uncover opportunities, develop clients and earn repeat business.

The difference is that you’re entering with a business-development methodology already built around that activity.

FPC trains owners not just to recruit candidates, but to generate job activity, develop company relationships, manage the placement process and build and manage an office.

Even before a new owner’s recruiting desk is launched, FPC evaluates prior work history, relevant industries and market demand and develops an initial target list of companies around that expertise.

That’s an important distinction.

Your professional network is the starting point, not the entire business plan.

The objective is to use the credibility your career has created to penetrate a market – and then systematically expand beyond your immediate contacts.

Your Network Works Differently in Search

Consider someone who spent 25 years in manufacturing operations.

As a consultant, she might approach former contacts and offer operational improvement, lean manufacturing or supply-chain consulting.

Each engagement requires her expertise and, very often, a substantial portion of her time.

As an executive search owner, those same relationships become the entrance to an entire talent ecosystem.

One former colleague may become a client.

Another may become a candidate.

A candidate may introduce her to a company.

A client may need five different positions filled over several years.

And a successful search can lead directly to the next one.

Perhaps the new VP of Operations discovers that the plant also needs a Director of Quality. The CEO who was impressed with the search process later needs a CFO. A candidate who wasn’t selected moves to another company and becomes a hiring manager. A satisfied client introduces the recruiter to another division or another organization.

Good recruiting work has the potential to compound.

The successful completion of one assignment doesn’t simply end the project. It can deepen the relationship and uncover the next business problem that needs to be solved.

One Important Difference: You Can Work on More Than One Search at a Time

There is another structural difference between consulting and recruiting that can be easy to overlook.

A consultant may spend weeks or months deeply embedded in one client’s assignment. Depending on the type of work, adding another major engagement may simply require more hours than one person has available.

Recruiting is different.

A recruiter can actively manage multiple searches at the same time.

One search may be at the candidate-identification stage. Another may have candidates interviewing. A third may be approaching an offer. At the same time, the recruiter may be developing a relationship with a prospective client that could generate another assignment.

That creates a different kind of business model.

Instead of finishing Project A before beginning Project B, several revenue opportunities can be progressing simultaneously.

And because the work is relationship-driven, activity in one search can create opportunities elsewhere. Conversations with candidates reveal market intelligence. Conversations with clients uncover additional hiring needs. Completed placements create credibility. Credibility leads to introductions. Introductions lead to additional searches.

The pipeline can become increasingly interconnected.

That doesn’t happen automatically. It requires disciplined execution, strong client service and continuous business development.

But when the work is done well, one project can help create the next rather than simply ending when the invoice is paid.

From Selling Your Time to Building an Organization

Perhaps the biggest distinction is what happens if you’re successful.

In traditional independent consulting, you are frequently the product.

Clients hire you because they want your knowledge and your experience.

That’s valuable, but it can also create a ceiling. There are only so many client hours one person can personally deliver.

Executive search can evolve differently.

At first, the owner’s experience, contacts and credibility may drive much of the business. But over time, the owner can hire recruiters, develop additional specialties, expand client relationships and build an organization in which other people produce revenue.

A single recruiter can work multiple searches.

Multiple recruiters can work multiple searches across different clients and specialties.

And the owner’s role can gradually expand from personally executing every search to developing clients, mentoring recruiters, building market expertise and leading the business.

That’s a fundamentally different growth path.

FPC provides training not only in recruiting, but in hiring and developing recruiters, scaling the business and managing an office. The network also offers ongoing training, technology, branding, marketing resources and collaboration between offices.

In other words, the goal isn’t merely to create another job for yourself.

It’s to build an enterprise around what you know.

So Which Path Is Right?

Consulting can be a terrific second career.

For someone who loves solving projects personally, wants a solo practice, has strong recurring client relationships and enjoys selling their expertise directly, it may be exactly the right choice.

Executive search appeals to a slightly different ambition.

You still consult.

You still leverage decades of industry knowledge.

You still rely on relationships, credibility, judgment and your ability to understand business problems.

But instead of delivering a report, recommendation or implementation project, your deliverable is the talent that helps the client solve the problem.

You can have multiple assignments moving simultaneously.

A successful assignment can create the next one.

And over time, you can build a team that expands the capacity of the business beyond what you can personally deliver.

So instead of asking only:

“Who in my network might hire me as a consultant?”

You begin asking:

“How can I turn my network, my industry expertise and my understanding of people into a business that extends well beyond my network?”

For someone deciding what’s next after a successful corporate career, that may be the more important question.

Because your next chapter doesn’t necessarily have to be another corporate job.

And it doesn’t necessarily have to be consulting on your own.

It could be building a business around the knowledge, relationships and reputation you spent your entire career creating.